I go to the front office, where I meet one of the many secretaries sitting at the front desk. She had just finished a phone call, and placed it back on the receiver. Then she turned to me. Sighing, she said, "Suspension room is that way." I stared at her. Was she okay? It was the middle of the day, and in-school-suspension started when school started. "Uh.....," I started, trying to find ways to ask if she was awake politely, "but it's the middle of the day." She ran a hand through her silver hair, and frowned. So many wrinkles appeared on her skin. As she shifted her hair, I saw a price tag near her ear.
It was a wig.
I saw a name-plate near her half-way full of coffee coffee mug. Mrs. Greene.
"Look, sweetie," Mrs. Greene said in a sickly sweet voice, the kind of voice people made when they really didn't want to talk to you. "I'm not in a good mood right now, so if you would please report yourself to Ms. Grantham, I...." She droned on and on and I wondered, who is Ms. Grantham?
Then I realized it was Juley's last name.
I sighed. Brain fart.
Mrs. Greene's voice came back to me. "Hey! Hey, young lady! Don't go sighing to me, it's the rules."
I shook my head. "What? Ma'am, sorry, I zoned out. Can you repeat what you said?"
By now, Mrs. Greene looked as if she wanted to retire. "Oh, just forget it!" She snapped. "Get out!"
I stared at her. "But I'm here to see Juley...." Mrs. Greene frowned at me. "Oh, how I hate she let you call her by her first name, so disrespectful! Alright, I'll call her in. I'm presuming you don't have suspension?"
I shook my head as she pounded on the key pad and brought the phone up to her ear. "Ms. Grantham, a student is here saying she wants to see you now.....uh, let me see." Mrs. Greene stared at me intensely. I struggled under her gaze. Mrs. Greene then went back to the phone. "Yes, well, it looks black to me, you know I'm old, hahaha!" The laugh sounded fake. Wait, what? "It looks black to me"? Were they talking about my hair? But why?
Mrs. Greene said a few 'mhm's' and a few 'yes ma'am's' before she smiled and ended her call. Obviously, her smile was fake. She looked at me with her beady blue eyes. "You can go in. Jeez, why does she let students treat her like a student," I heard Mrs. Greene mumble to herself as I headed towards Juley's office.
It was the last door to the right of the hallway, and I knocked on the door three times.
Knock.
Knock.
Knock.
I heard Juley's voice sing, "Come iiiiiin!" I opened the door. Her office smelled like doughnuts, as usual, and her office was clattered with cool knickknacks. A collection of One Direction bobble heads, including Zayn, (I wasn't a fan of One Direction), three Rubik's Cubes, one of them solved, another one unsolved, and one where the stickers were peeled off and was solved, and huge jar of gummy bear, Haribo, and all sorts of other junk.
Juley was giving her little wiener dog a belly rub as I came in and sat on the chair right in front of her desk. Juley stopped petting her dog and gave me a sad smile. "It's about Jordan, isn't it?" I nodded as she sighed. "Very well," she said, getting up and walking to her coffee machine. I stared at her, bewildered. "Why are you making coffee?"
Juley faced me. "You're going to be in here for quite a while, so I hope you're prepared to miss most of the rest of your classes. Of course, excused by me, but you may leave any time. I made coffee for both of us since I have a lot to tell you."
I stared at her, my eyebrows all the way up. "H-how....?"
Juley didn't look at me as she said this, her back faced me as she prepared the coffee. "Jordan has told me a lot about you. Yesterday, he told me to expect you to come here." She sighed. "After what Jordan's told you about me, I figured you'd hate me. So I didn't talk to you much."
